#killinganarab

The summer before seventh grade, Iraq invaded Kuwait, kicking off the First Gulf War, aka Operation Desert Storm. By back-to-school time, classmates with military family members being deployed saw my face as that of the enemy. Recess was when I got taunted and ganged up on, even pushed and pinned down on the snowy ground.

Needless to say, from my experiences, kids are ruthlessly cruel.

Also in seventh grade, I had a music class. One of the assignments for this class was to bring in a favorite song to play on the stereo. I don’t remember what song I brought in, but I do remember that someone brought in The Cure’s “Killing An Arab,” the band’s first and most controversial single.

I remember that I could only cry in response that day in class, how everyone was looking at me as if I was crying for no reason. What I didn’t remember until just a few weeks ago was exactly who it was that chose that as their favorite song that day. It was The Girl Who Loved The Cure. She had curly chin-length hair and wore crazy tights. Everyone knew her one and only true love was The Cure’s Robert Smith. I found out it was her because she reached out to me on Facebook to apologize. She said she grew up in a racist household, her motivation more sinister than I had imagined at the time. She said when she saw me cry that day it made a huge impact on her.

I told her I forgave her, sent her on her way.

Then I got to thinking about how she used to look at me in seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades. How she never spoke to me and just looked at me like I was a curiosity she didn’t find particularly pleasant.

They say you should forgive people for you, not for them. I did that, but I don’t feel peace. I never thought the bullies of yesteryear were mean to me out of unfettered, undiscriminating racism - I thought they were mean to me because their loved ones were being sent far away and they were lashing out from the pain. They hurt me, but I took comfort in the idea that they were in pain, too.

Then I got to thinking about how long The Girl Who Loved The Cure waited since that day in music class to grow a conscience. I thought about how she’d treated my DMs as a confessional, and me, her victim, like a priest, ready and willing to absolve her of her sin.